On 11 August 2019, this man was elected Guatemala’s president. He supports the death penalty, and opposes equal marriage and the legalisation of abortion. SOURCE: Le Telegramme, 12 August 2019 (en français)

(Karen Duque, Public Defender, Ecuador) On 29 May, reproductive rights groups in Latin America petitioned the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of four young Latin American rape survivors who were forced to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term and become “mothers against their will”. The girls are from Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. They were younger than 14 years old when they were raped, two by relatives and one by a local parish priest. The … Continued

Women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean are frequently forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term due to restrictive abortion laws or the lack of implementation of the current law establishing its legality. Abortion is completely illegal in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Suriname. In Guatemala, abortion is only legal to avoid risk to a pregnant woman’s life, which is typically interpreted to mean immediate and imminent death. In Peru … Continued

Guatemalan legislators began debate on 4 September 2018 on two bills proposing abortion law reform: one looking to widen the law and the other to toughen it. Currently, abortion is only allowed if the woman’s life is in danger. The bill, sponsored by the leftist Convergencia opposition party, aimed to allow girls aged 14 or under who have been victims of sexual abuse to have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The … Continued